The Journey of Parenthood…

Our Mini Christmas

Most of our Christmas traditions involve our extended family (Aren’t Zach, Kye and Britt now my immediate family and everyone else is extended??? Never really sure how that worked?) but we have established a few of our very own traditions as well!

Every year we hit up the dollar store and buy each other 10 stocking presents each. Kye and Britt took turns going with each of us to pick out presents for everyone. This year we went right after Brittlynn got her tongue clipped…probably not the greatest timing as she wasn’t very happy. Kye had a BLAST though and it’s always a good thing to teach him how to give instead of just receiving all the time.

That same day (the 23rd) we also made our Santa cookies. My mom does the BIG cookie decorating each year but I still want that tradition at my own home with my children too. I thought each year we would just decorate Santa shaped cookies to leave out for Santa on the 24th. Someday I’d like to do home made cookies (I probably won’t ever do home made frosting like Mom does though, I’ll leave that for her to make her cookies extra yummy!) but this year I bought sugar cookie dough ahead of time and just used that. 

That’s a microwave plate cover he’s using for a hat btw

I think Santa has enough sprinkles!

Daddy even got to help!

Yes, you can see directly down my shirt…this is what happens when you give your husband the camera!

Since we have Christmas morning twice (once at Zach’s parents and once at my Mom’s) we have a TON of presents to sort and load up! I made sure each gift had a bow and divided them up while Zach loaded!

On Christmas day, we wake up at The Parker’s and do Christmas there then we head home. We got home in time for Brittlynn’s feeding and after she ate we opened the gifts my dad had brought with him during his visit and we opened the stocking stuffers we had bought for each other.

Kye helped Britt open, of course!

LOVE the little reindeer socks Dad and Audrey got her

Kye was stoked about his Woody pjs

Dad and Audrey made this mirror for me using a bunch of my old toys…the fact that they still had these toys impressed me!

Dad also gave me two of my grandmother’s bracelets and they got me a pretty pink bracelet too

Kye was more excited about the gifts he bought for our pets than he was his own stocking presents

“talking” on his calculator

Sadie loved Zeke’s toy best

Spiderman pen Kye got for him…I’m sure he’ll be using that to sell some Aflac!

When we left Mrs. Charlotte’s that morning I asked Kye was his favorite gift was. He said “Veggie Tales movie.” SO random because I bought that movie at a used kids sale for $1 haha. After we got done with stockings and such at our house I asked him again and he said “Levi’s toys” Once Christmas was COMPLETELY over I asked him again what his VERY favorite thing he got for Christmas was and he answered, right away, “Brittlynn.” Too sweet!

That afternoon I napped while the kids slept to try to get my energy back up for Christmas round two! We typically spend the night at Mom’s house Christmas night but this year we let Kye spend the night there while Zach, Britt and I came home. It was just TOO much on us to try to spend the night away from home two nights in a row with a newborn…plus we live less than two minutes away so it didn’t make a big difference! Before heading to Mom’s for our Christmas dinner, we played outside a little bit with Kye’s Lightning McQueen (here’s a video!)

A big thanks to Dad and Audrey for their thoughtful gifts, we enjoyed having something left under our tree for us to open at our house 🙂 It was nice!!! I’m also thankful to Zach for putting up with ALLLL our traditions. Between the ones with his family, my family, and our little family we are about as traditioned up as you can get huh?

Emily Parker
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